Category Archives: dviz

Mar 2009 Dviz hiring two more staff

The Dviz project is a collaborative digital technology research project between Twelve Horses, IADT and UCD, and is funded by the NDRC [ more blog posts ]. This project brings together a diverse skill set from both its commercial partner and institutional research teams to realise an innovative visualisation platform with strong commercial potential. [ Vacancies PDF ]

Applications are invited for appointment to the following two year fixed term contract posts:

  • Web Developer (n-tier) Ref: 5/09
  • Front–end Web Application Developer Ref: 6/09

Inclusive salary scale: €47,675 to €54,642 (5 points)

Further details on the above posts are available on our website www.iadt.ie or by contacting: The Human Resource Office, Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology, Kill Avenue, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin. Telephone: (01) 239 4601, Fax: (01) 239 4700, Email: recruitment@iadt.ie

Applications by way of letter of application highlighting your key competencies, skills, knowledge and experience to date which you believe match those required to successfully deliver on the responsibilities of the post holder should be submitted not later than: 12 Noon, Friday 20th March 2009. A copy of your current Curriculum Vitae should also be submitted with your letter of application. Late Applications will not be accepted IADT is an equal opportunities employer.

[ IADT Website ] [ Vacancies PDF ]

Advert to appear in print on Friday (click to see larger version):

March 2009 Cloud Computing

As part of our applied research project Dviz I’ve been building up an understanding and appreciation of the incredibly over-hyped area of cloud computing. However, for Dviz it is important as it allows us to develop a scaleable approach to the delivery of the infrastructure. Dviz is a collaborative digital technology research project between Twelve Horses, IADT and UCD, and is funded by the NDRC. This project brings together a diverse skill set from both its commercial partner and university research teams to realise an innovative visualisation platform with strong commercial potential.

Cloud computing refers to a style of computing in which resources are provided as a service over the Internet to users who need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure. The canonical example is Google Docs, a functional word processing office app delivered entirely via one’s web browser [1]. The level of interest in Cloud Computing as an accessible service for the realisation of new web based applications has been growing over the past year with both academic research [6] and is also leaking into mainstream discussion [5]. Discussion on how the cloud will impact high performance computing [4] and other areas such as its use in Green IT are also ongoing.

Quote: “Cloud Computing, the long-held dream of computing as a utility, has the potential to transform a large part of the IT industry, making software even more attractive as a service and shaping the way IT hardware is designed and purchased. Developers with innovative ideas for new Internet services no longer require the large capital outlays in hardware to deploy their service or the human expense to operate it. They need not be concerned about overprovisioning for a service whose popularity does not meet their predictions, thus wasting costly resources, or underprovisioning for one that becomes wildly popular, thus missing potential customers and revenue. Moreover, companies with large batch-oriented tasks can get results as quickly as their programs can scale, since using 1000 servers for one hour costs no more than using one server for 1000 hours. This elasticity of resources, without paying a premium for large scale, is unprecedented in the history of IT.” [4]

Some of the different application areas where cloud computing might make an impact include [2]:

  • Infrastructure-as-a-Service
  • Storage-as-a-Service
  • Data-as-a-Service
  • Platform-as-a-Service
  • Software-as-a-Service

UCSB & IBM T.J. Watson Research five-layer grouping.

Discussions on cloud ontologies have come to light that provide a great starting point for taxonomy discussions [3].

References:

  1. Cloud computing: Threat or Menace?
  2. A crack in the madness of clouds
  3. A better way to understand cloud computing
  4. Berkeley Releases Cloud Computing Study Detailed Report [ PDF ]
  5. Cloud computing ascends the mainstream
  6. Tech Titans Building Boom
  7. Cloud Computing Journal

Jan 2009 New Translational Research Project Dviz & Senior Software Architect post

12 HorsesIADT logoUCD crestNDRC logo

Representatives of UCD, IADT and Twelve Horses in late December 2008 signed a two year contract with the NDRC for the Dviz digital media technologies project. I am the UCD PI, Hilary Kenna in the IADT PI and Gabrielle Stafford leads the project with Twelve Horses Ltd.

The Dviz project is a collaborative digital technology research project between Twelve Horses, IADT and UCD, and is funded by the NDRC. This project brings together a diverse skill set from both its commercial partner and university research teams to realise an innovative visualisation platform with strong commercial potential.

Dviz itself is an online platform to facilitate the contextualisation of statistical data in realtime using dynamic visualisation technology. The ultimate objective of this project is to unlock the value of data by creating a platform that will enable users to visualise, manipulate and track data in a way that is meaningful for them. The resultant dynamic visualisations can then be used to investigate causal relationships to influence decision and policy making with evidence based conclusions.

Jan 6, 2009: The Dviz team is hiring a Senior Software Architect Link: http://tinyurl.com/7lr7lt

Draft Advert: Senior Software Architect – Dviz – (check Twelve Horses link for full and up to date advert).

The Senior Architect will be tasked with conceiving, designing, presenting and realising software and architectural approaches for the DViz platform and applications.

The ideal candidate must be fluent in modern enterprise and open source technologies, and must be able to apply these to a distributed system environment. A solid understanding of Web application technologies, databases, and performance parameters is a must. The ability to work independently as well as having excellent written and verbal communication skills is required.

The Senior Software Architect will be expected to technically review and manage the software development lifecycle, ensuring best practise process and techniques are deployed throughout design, implementation and testing, and appropriate metrics utilised to control and monitor the integrity and maintainability of the technical solution. Both conventional and Agile development lifecycle models will be used where appropriate, and full configuration management of all versions and variants will be maintained.

The Senior Architect will be expected to lead the following tasks:

* analysis of the requirements
* ensuring that the architectural design of the solution is consistent with the component architecture, and that all requirements are met
* providing guidance and refinements on the modelling and design process
* ensuring that the architecture fully covers all requirements, and has full traceability to requirements
* identification of any study, risk reduction, or prototyping stages that need to be planned into the development

Qualifications and/or Skills

* Minimum of 7 years Experience as Software Engineer
* Bachelor’s Degree Computer Science or related field (Advanced degree preferred)
* Experience as technical lead in designing and architecting scalable enterprise solutions
* Strong programming skills in Java and J2EE required
* Web Services, GUI, SOA, JSP, and XML desired.
* Extensive knowledge of Object Oriented (OO) Analysis and Design